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Paul C�zanne: Two Sketchbooks

Pierre Puget's powerfully muscled and frequently contorted figures held a great appeal for Cézanne, who drew after them repeatedly at the Louvre. In this copy, as in the other four (see Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987-53-79a, 1987-53-79b; Chappuis, Adrien. The Drawings of Paul Cézanne. 2 vols. Greenwich, Conn., 1973, nos. 391, 1132), he worked from plaster casts of the two Atlases flanking the monumental portal of the Hôtel de Ville at Toulon; the present copy and one other show the Atlas at the right side of the portal. Since these casts were in the Salle Puget at the Louvre until 1886, when they were transferred to the Musée de Sculpture Comparée, the recently opened museum of casts at the Trocadéro, and since the copies on the preceding and following pages in this sketchbook were definitely made in the Louvre, it is likely that this one too was made there; hence before 1886. The angle of vision, more nearly horizontal than would have been possible at the Trocadéro, and the extensive shading in broad patches of soft, parallel strokes also suggest the earlier dating. Theodore Reff, from Paul Cézanne: Two Sketchbooks (1989), p. 61.